\r\nStandardised, weighed, measured, worked on, claimed, performed, damaged\u2026 The body is the site where all our battles are waged, amongst other social, aesthetic and moral diktats. To understand their impact on our bodies, the gaze of the Brussels photographer Laurent Poma is currently settling on every body type in order to render visible those absent from our visual fields.\r\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\u2018The body is the most political and the most public thing there is<\/em>,\u2019 argued the transgender and feminist philosopher, Paul B. Preciado, in 2019. Michel Foucault had earlier spoken of the \u2018bio-power\u2019 being deployed against individual bodies from the eighteenth century onwards. A power which is deployed through government policies, medical practices and discourses on health, food and sexuality which aim to standardise the behaviour of each person to produce a population which is healthy, productive and conforms to established norms. For Foucault, the body is thus not solely a biological object but in fact also a political one, because it is subjected to an ensemble of powers and technologies of social control. Fertile ground on which relationships of domination can be enacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many are the thinkers who have theorised the body and its political significance. Several amongst them, such as the aforementioned philosopher Foucault, have inspired Laurent Poma in his photographic research work entitled \u2018Modern Bodies.\u2019 Neutral settings, soft lighting which is altered as little as possible, static naked bodies which, through their posture or their gaze, freed from any eroticisation, are a testament to a life\u2019s journey, as is their encounter with the photographer. \u2018Standardised beauty doesn\u2019t interest me<\/em>,\u2019 points out Laurent Poma. \u2018Each body is affecting. Through the dialogue I have with the models, I try to persuade them to loosen the control they have over their bodies. Some of them have told me that they had the impression of being alone, face-to-face with themselves during the photo shoot. I have also realised that the bodies which seem closest to social and aesthetic norms are not always the most uninhibited. Once it is in front of the camera, a thin or sculpted body can be stripped of its assured poise at the same time as it removes its clothing<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n